Learning the 49th Most Popular Language in the World

Four weeks into learning Pashto, I am amazed at how exhausting the process has been.  On Friday afternoons I am physically and mentally spent.  My days are filled with nothing but Pashto, Pashto, Pashto.  I did some quick math (meaning it is probably incorrect).  There are approximately 30 million native Pashto speakers between Afghanistan and the western area of Pakistan (since the Durand Line effectively split the Pashtun people in half).  The literacy rate of those 30 million is about 14 percent.  Now, if you talk to my instructor he will say it is up to 35 percent so reality is possibly somewhere in between.  If we low ball it and stay with the 14 percent for the calculation, that means that approximately 4.2 million people actually read and write Pashto.  Amazing that I now spend every waking moment (not too mention the occasional fitful dream) speaking, listening, reading and writing this language.  I looked up a website that ranked the languages in the world by number of native speakers...alright it was Wikipedia...and Pashto comes in 49th.  Now that still beats out many languages including Greek, Swedish, Welsh and Comanche, but still, this turn my life has taken (of my own doing) is surreal to say the least. 

We are divided into small sections, so I sit around a table in a room with two other students while one and sometimes two instructors drill us on vocabulary, verb conjugation and conversational skills.  There is absolutely no hiding when there are only three of you.  The amazing thing is when they are asking a question of one of the other two, I always have the answer in my head, and I can't wait to blurt it out to save the poor guy who is fumbling and stumbling to find the correct word or phrase (poor insignificant fool!).  Of course, once the instructor turns to me and asks me to speak in Pashto, that knowledge that I had in my head seeps out of my ears unexpectedly and I find myself fumbling and stumbling for the answer (becoming a poor, insignificant fool) while my two classmates stand ready to pounce on the answer at any sign of weakness or hesitation from me.  It is amazing how that 50 percent switch becomes activated.  Fifty percent of your knowledge seems to disappear the moment you are under the gun. 

Some of the audio lessons we have in class and for homework, require us to listen to native speakers conversations and pick out the significant information in the dialogue.  This has been the most difficult part for me, and without a doubt the most important skill I need to pick up.  I have been doing great with the reading and writing portion of the lessons, but I am not going over there to read the newspaper.  Trying to separate the important information from a stream of words that come at a lightning quick pace is daunting.  Some lessons I have had to listen to the sentence twenty or more times to figure out what they are saying.  I can see myself over there trying to converse and repeating over and over  "Huh? Say again? What? Could you repeat?"  That would not be pretty. Of course I have never been good with this.  I remember sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Dallas, Texas when I was eleven year old.  Dad was attending a convention and he turned it into a vacation for the family.  As luck would have it, the Chicago White Sox were in town to play the Texas Rangers.  We had gone to see the game the night before since my favorite player, Richie Allen was playing for the White Sox that year.  So, as I am sitting in the lobby, with my White Sox ballcap on, two hispanic gentlemen sat down next to me and started to talk to me.  This poor guy kept asking me a question but for the life of me I couldn't understand him.  I was terribly nervous, so the fifty percent switch was in full activation and I finally asked him "how old am I ?" trying to figure out what he was saying.  He finally slowed it down to my level and I was able to grasp that he was just asking how I was doing.  Years later I am no better...scary. 

On a completely different note, the man who was talking to me was an infielder for the White Sox named Luis Alvarado.  After getting through the introductions I had a short conversation with him and got his autograph before scurrying off to find my family.  I just googled Luis and sadly, he passed away nine years ago at the age of 52.  That year with the White Sox was his best year in the majors. 

Alright, back to the point.  This language training is exhausting, yet I am having a great time.  I enjoy coming in every day and learning something new.  I revel in the challenge that it brings me and I have set high goals for myself.  My brother is always telling me that learning a language has been known to fight off the possibility of Alzheimers which is definitely another significant benefit to this whole evolution.  Three months to go!